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High Priest of Hel
Re: Class and Level Geekery XVI - These Characters May Now Drive the Plot, Gluteus_Maximus, Knowledge: Religion not maxed, Listen 0, Ride 0, Speak Language: Dwarven and Giant, Spellcraft, Spot 0 |abilities=Dwarf racial abilities, vampire abilities, rebuke/bolster undead |spells=Standard cleric list, plus Protection from Daylight, Summon Proxy |width=250px }} The entity known variously as "Durkon"*, Greg, and High Priest of Hel is a vampire spirit created by the goddess of Death of the Northern Pantheon, Hel. He was the first priest of Hel of sufficient level to serve as her High Priest, and held that title for a time. As a spirit within the late Durkon Thundershield's deceased body, he is capable of controlling Durkon's actions. Hel said of her high priest, "Nergal's snake may have sired you, but the dwarves fall under my purview. Your dark spirit was birthed in my hall." Name There is some difficulty with what name to use to refer to this character, a fact dealt with in the story as well.Comic #1030, "Naming Names" The vampire spirit who controls Durkon's undead body is clearly distinct from Durkon himself, as the two engage in conversation within his mind. However, he has never given a name for himself, and the body he occupies is Durkon and the appearance of his spirit-self is identical to Durkon. When his position as High Priest of Hel was known, he was mostly known by that title alone. But since he abdicated the position, the title is confusing as he technically is not currently the High Priest of Hel, and another vampire is. On the discussion boards, the link|276152}} Number of Character Appearances thread refers to him as "Durkon"* (quotation marks and asterisk included). The link|485983}} Class and Level Geekery thread refers to him as Greg. Both names are references to comic #1030, "Naming Names". The convention on appearances of the character adopted in the forum, since he is really a puppet master controlling a corpse, is that he only appears if he speaks, or if his spirit-form is shown. Otherwise it is an appearance of Durkon's corpse alone. Biography Blood Runs in the Family Durkon was raised as a vampire by Malack after he slew his friend and used a spell he had devised to speed up the process of raising a vampire (which normally takes days). Initially, Durkon was in Malack's thrall, and obeyed his every command. The mechanics of vampirism in Order of the Stick have particulars which are not spelled out in the D&D rules, specifically that the vampire's body is taken control of by a new negative energy spirit, and the original soul is trapped within the body of the vampire. Given this fact, the vampire spirit, "Durkon"*, must have been in Durkon's head from the time he was raised, but was compelled to do the bidding of his master. No scenes were shown during this period of what was transpiring inside Durkon's mind, but vampire mentioned later, that Durkon fought with him even over Roy's name. "Durkon"* started to act freely in #907, after the death of Malack freed him from thralldom, but even earlier, he wasn't mere puppet. He had to be stopped from killing Belkar and volunteered to summon a fiend. After Malack's death, "Durkon"* immediately began to enact the plans of his goddess Hel, which involved attending the Godsmoot in order to create a tie in the voting, forcing the High Priests present to call any High Priests of the demigods who showed up, many of them presumably under Hel's thumb. To achieve this goal, the vampire spirit posed as Durkon and joined the Order of the Stick. Initially he helped them defeat the Silicon Elemental summoned by Redcloak, then he helped them escape from the army of the Empire of Blood, and fought the Vector Legion. They escaped to the Mechane, and began their journey to Kraagor's Gate. Current Activities On their trek to the northern continent, "Durkon"* tricked all of them into believing the ruse that he was still Durkon, save for one, the Halfling ranger Belkar Bitterleaf whose blood he had drank and nearly killed. Leading them to believe he wished to find clerics to resurrect him, he subtly led them to the location of the Godsmoot, where he murdered Exarch Gontor Hammerfell and at least one other member of the Creed of the Stone. Witnessed by Belkar, who immediately fled to find Roy, he changed into a wolf-like creature to catch up with him, engaging in a quick skirmish that ended with Belkar being thrown off the side of the mountain. When the meeting began, he mostly kept to himself and waited for the votes to be tallied before presenting himself as the High Priest of Hel. Summoning a proxy of his mistress as proof of his identity as her High Priest, the Northern Pantheon vote soon came to a tie, forcing the High Priest of Balder to ask an usher to fetch for any High Priests of the demigods who bothered showing up. While they waited for the High Priests to arrive, Roy leaped from the balcony into the Great Nave and engaged the vampire in a duel, as there were no rules preventing a bodyguard from attacking his own High Priest. At this time Roy came to fully understand that "Durkon" was not the real Durkon at all. Though he was unable to kill Roy, the vote to destroy the world was paused due to Hermod refusing to vote with Hel, resulting in a second tie and in Dvalin assembling the council of clans to poll them on the matter that affected every living dwarf. Despite this, he managed to put in motion one of his backup plans, which involved the vampirized Exarch Hammerfell infiltrating the Mechane and retrieving their teleportation orb, allowing him and Hammerfell to escape the moot to dominate the Dwarven elders. In order to allow Hel's vote to remain, he vampirized the entire Creed of the Stone save one, whom they killed, and abdicated as High Priest in favor of one of the former Creed members, allowing him to leave with the Exarch with Hel's vote intact. "Durkon"* teleported to Firmament, setting up his plan to dominate the members of the Council of Clans in order to fix the vote in Hel's favor. He and his vampires killed several of the clerics of Thor at their temple there, using Malack's spell to immediately raise them as vampire spawn. He then set up a trap at a banquet hall and lured the Order to confront him there. He and his spawn defeated the Order in battle, but he became distracted by Durkon's memory of his mother's decision to spend her whole fortune raising five strangers from the dead. He could not wrap his head around Sigdi's altruism, and demanded an explanation of Durkon. Durkon responded by flooding the vampire spirit with all of the memories of his life, which is what it took for him to understand his mother's actions, but the sudden rush of memories changed the vampire spirit into Durkon himself. Free of his bonds, Durkon lowered his defenses and allowed Belkar to destroy his undead body with a stake through the heart. At that point Durkon's soul was free of his undead prison, and the entity sometimes known as the High Priest of Hel was no more. Personality and Traits The High Priest of Hel does not speak with a dwarven accent and seems unfamiliar with dwarf customs, using Durkon's memories to emulate his accent and knowledge and on occasion has accidentally dropped the accent. Following his outing at the Godsmoot, he dropped the accent altogether, though he kept the façade of "Evil Durkon" in case there was a chance that Roy would unconsciously be holding back. As the first memories absorbed by the spirit are those of the lowest, darkest ones, the High Priest of Hel claims to be Durkon's worst day personified, presumably leading to resent towards the Dwarven race for the unjustified exile from his home. A cunning individual, the High Priest has shown proficient at planning in advance and adapting his plans when necessary, having a backup plan in the event that the demigods did not vote as planned and considering killing Wrecan, Veldrina, and Roy if Veldrina could resurrect and having to make a new plan. He uses anything at his disposal to his advantage for his plans, for example using the subterranean part of Firmament to his advantage by killing and vampirizing several clerics by researching the Create Spawn ability instead of the Protection from Daylight ability from Malack's staff, and also using Roy's friendship with Durkon against him in battle. However, he tends to lose his temper at times, and expressing it at extreme ways, even losing his accent on occasion from the spirit yelling inside Durkon's head. The High Priest is also sadistic in nature, most likely due to his alignment. He takes pleasure in murdering his opponents almost as much as Belkar and greatly desired to kill Roy even when it was unnecessary to complete H'el's plan. During his battle with Roy, the High Priest attempted to crush his spirit by bringing up his greatest failures, and even taunting him about how many pieces his brother was in after he was blown up. This behaviour proved to be his undoing as it made Roy realize that he wasn't Durkon and later on, his inability to comprehend the reason behind Sigdi's sacrifice made him vulnerable and allowed Durkon to overwhelm him. Powers and Abilities As a vampire spirit controlling the body of a 14th level cleric and befitting his title, the High Priest of Hel is capable of casting spells as a cleric, channeling negative energy. As a vampire, he is also capable of regenerating wounds, draining levels from his opponents and dominating people with his gaze, the first two of which were used to great effect during his fight with Roy Greenhilt. The High Priest of Hel can forcibly read Durkon's memories and use them to emulate Durkon. Durkon has been trying to use long memories so the Order of the Stick will notice the delay. However, this tactic has proven to be useless as each memory passes within a split-second. Weapons and Equipment "Durkon"* has all of Durkon's possession from life, including: *'Heirloom Light Steel Shield and Warhammer': Durkon has had these throughout the comics, an heirloom of the Thundershield family. However, "Durkon"* has never used the Warhammer, so he may have lost it in Girard's pyramid. *'Full Plate Armor': Since becoming a vampire, Durkon's plate armor has turned black. *'Amulet of Natural Armor': This was picked from the hoard of Xykon after his defeat in the first book. *'Scroll of Sending': V believed Durkon to possess at least one of these items. *[[Malack's Staff|'Malack's Staff']]: Formerly belonging to the cleric Malack, This magic staff could be used to cast a number of spells, most notably Protection from Daylight, and the spell which quickens the Create Spawn ability. It has since been destroyed by Roy. *The vampire also possesses: candles, a bedroll, a deck of cards, an unholy symbol, a parcheesi board, a spyglass, religious vestments, a belt pouch, Bleedingham papers, a flask of liquor, and 10,000+ gp of diamond dust Gallery HPoH Spirit.PNG|The spirit that controls Durkon's corpse. References Category:Characters Category:Dwarves Category:Dead Characters Category:Lawful Evil Characters Category:Lawful Characters Category:Evil Characters Category:Clerics Category:High Priests Category:Undead Characters